Hey Folks, As I mentioned at the meeting, Nexus Computer Books is now stocking the SuSE Wine Rack, and I've finally had a chance to get my hands on it,...and let me tell you, it delivers. At $69.99, it's a steal!
What it does: The SuSE Wine rack combines 3 great utilities in one package: CodeWeaver's Office Crossover suite, its Crossover Plugin suite, as well as TransGaming's WineX. These programs all use specially enhanced commercial implementations of WINE. For newcomers to Linux, WINE is a freely available project which aims for native support of Windows programs (www.wine.org). The aforementioned programs build on WINE's functionality and contribute portions of those refinements but use commercial distribution models. Take home message? It will cost you a little, but it may save you a lot of fussing about especially if you are new to Linux or would rather just have things work conveniently and quickly. Codeweaver's Crossover Office provides native Linux support for MS-Office as well as a large number of other Windows based applications (most notably Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia's Dreamweaver MX and Flash MX). Codeweaver's Crossover Plugin is designed to deliver a number of bowser plugins and browsing based applications such as Quicktime, Shockwave etc.. Finally TransGaming's WineX is designed to deliver Direct-X game compatibility via WINE. TransGaming claims title's such as Diablo II, Warcraft III, Counterstrike and Half-Life all work without a hitch. In addition to this, a reasonably entertaining little game called Marble-Blast has been thrown in for good measure. The best part of Wine Rack is that you get all the individual pieces for incredible value....$69.99 CDN to be precise (at Nexus here in Calgary ...in stock now!) instead of roughly $150-170* if you order these products individually. This is an amazing deal! ...as long as you use SuSE :) Installation: Not surprisingly the appropriately named "Wine Rack" is designed for SuSE 9 and intended to be installed via YaST as a "Patch CD Update" (There weren't any instructions on the jacket or on the CD it self, but having familiarity with similar products from SuSE, I quickly deduced that was their intended installation method). Very painless, but the lack of instructions regarding this little detail might make it quite a bit less so for a novice user. Looking around on the disk, I found that the actual install files are all rpm based. I haven't the opportunity to try it yet, but I imagine one could (with some expertise and experimentation) install this software on prior SuSE versions and potentially even on non SuSE systems as well, providing the necessary dependencies are resolved. Once the SuSE installer is done -if you're using KDE (on SuSE 9)- you'll find handy menu items have been added for adding/removing software configuration etc. Additionally, you'll find that Crossover Office adds another folder on your SuSE 9 menu bar called Windows applications, which is where it installs icons for your all of the programs you install via crossover. Very Nice. If you're a Gnome user, things will lose their luster somewhat quickly from here. The only icons that are placed in the menu are those of the installed windows programs which is a lot better than nothing, but still far from ideal. That may be fine and well if you regularly use both desktops or are at least able to do so occasionally. Without a KDE installation things are a bit more difficult and as such may require launching binaries from a shell or creating your menu items. For convenience sake I've listed the shell commands and documentation URLs for folks using Gnome (and possibly other window managers) below.** Both the Crossover set-up utilities as well as the TransGaming utility will allow you to add and/or remove supported as well as unsupported programs. They become in effect mini Control Panels which offer a number of options. Conclusion: In conclusion I have to say that I am elated. This package means that I may never need to boot into Windows again (I sure could use that space for mp3s!). As much as I would like to see the world (or more specifically my work place) adopt open standards, That hasn't happened yet. I'm still regularly confronted with the need to edit existing MS-Office documents. When that change happens, I'm ready. In the mean time this I believe this the best solution that one is likely to find find from both cost and ease-of-use standpoints. I also have the odd game that I'd like to play that doesn't have native Linux support (Half-Life, Diablo-II, and Warcraft-III come to mind). Because I much prefer working in Linux, I haven't played them for ages. Being able to do so is a real treat and a terrific bonus, as I'm comfortable spending money (when warranted) on productivity solutions but am reluctant to spend money on playing games. As a result of installing the SuSE Wine Rack I am now able to transparently access all manner of MS-Office files, and play games that were not available to me outside of a Windows environment in one easy painless experience. I'd recommend it confidently to any SuSE 9 user (Pro or Personal Editions). This is truly a steal! Marcel CodeWeaver's Office Crossover: http://www.codeweavers.com/site/products/cxoffice/ Codeweaver's Crossover Plugin: http://www.codeweavers.com/site/products/cxplugin/ TransGaming's WineX: http://www.transgaming.com TransGaming's Marbleblast http://www.transgaming.com/marbleblast.php * ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CodeWeaver's Office Crossover: $59.95 US Codeweaver's Crossover Plugin: $39.95 US TransGaming (minimum subscription: 3 months): $15.00 US TransGaming's Marble Blast (Gold): $19.99 US _________ $134.89 US Currency Conversion (1.269 - Jan 10 2004) $171.18 CDN Note: shipping etc is still not factored in. ** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ office setup: sh -c /opt/cxoffice/bin/cxsetup plugin setup: sh -c /opt/cxplugin/bin/cxsetup office reset: sh -c /opt/cxoffice/bin/cxreset plugin reset: sh -c /opt/cxplugin/bin/cxreset simulate reboot: sh -c /opt/cxoffice/bin/cxreboot TransGaming control panel: sh -c /usr/bin/Point2Play Crossover office documentation URL: file:///opt/cxoffice/doc/index.html Crossover plugin documentation URL: file:///opt/cxplugin/doc/index.html -- Marcel Lecker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca
